


The Nizam of Hyderabad, Chapter 8: En Prise

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Series: The Nizam of Hyderabad [8]
Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Calcutta, Stephen’s travails result in a zero-sum rencounter with Harry Johnson</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nizam of Hyderabad, Chapter 8: En Prise

_Surprise, Mignonne_ and _Repulse_ limped into the Bay of Bengal, anchoring at Saugor Roads to sail Stephen and Mr Adam in the cutter up the Hoogli River into Calcutta. Powerful typhoons and cyclones had swept through the Bay of Bengal and the entire Indian Ocean. They had also swept through the harbour at Saugor and it showed. It was filled with stricken ships, missing large amounts of canvas, masts and spars and Jack surveyed it without pleasure. He was afraid it would be hard going for _Surprise_ to obtain what was necessary at a reasonable price and he hoped they could get the spars necessary in a timely manner to get to Bombay. He sat waiting in the barge as Stephen and Mr Adam were lowered in the bosun’s chair, Stephen scowling that an old seadog such as himself should be subjected to such lubberly treatment.

They had arrived on the quay and Mr Adam went to see about arranging overland transport for his own dunnage and Stephen was looking at the landmarks Jack was pointing out when they heard a familiar voice calling, “Admiral! Admiral! Ahoy, there, Admiral Aubrey!” and to their immense shock, they were beholding Post Captain William Babbington racing towards them, his face lit with pure joy.  
  
“William! My God, what are you doing here?” Jack said, embracing him and clapping his shoulder. “I almost cannot credit it!” Babbington bowed to Dr Maturin who then shook his hand warmly.  
  
“Well, sir, that is us,” Babbington said, pointing out at a thirty-eight gun frigate standing out, her remaining yards all ahoo. “The _Trincomalee_. We was coming from Java and we got hit pretty hard by the typhoon. We lost almost everything, every spar, our storm sails, all of the top masts, even the cutters. And so, here we are sir, trying to provision enough to make it out to get to Bombay and a proper yard.” He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead. “Might we go to that very fine inn over there, sir? I left Fanny there, in the shade. She will be ever so glad to see the both of you. Have you ever known such heat, sir? It was 100 degrees on the quarterdeck, I cannot imagine what it is here.”  
  
“Missus, that is, Fanny is with you?” Jack said, uncomfortable about referring to her as “Mrs Wray,” given she was another man's wife, given Wray’s disgrace, given his own personal injury at Wray’s hands.

“She is Mrs Babbington now, sir,” Babbington said, beaming as broadly as ever he might. “We were married at the Cape last November when the declaration finally came through. I want to thank you and the Doctor for all your help. Fanny and I are so extremely grateful. So, so extremely grateful," Babbington said and his fondness for them could not have been more evident. Jack's delight bubbled over and he laughed, so heartily thrilled he was that his most accomplished skirt-chasing protégé was now finally a married man, having waited so many years for the opportunity to wed the former Fanny Harte.

“Why, William, I give you joy! I give both of you all the joy in the world! Let us go so that I might kiss the bride!” Jack said, beaming and clapping him on the shoulder. “Oh, ho, what happy news!”

“Congratulations to you, Captain Babbington, dear joy,” Stephen said, shaking his hand, “and by all means, let us go and have a cold drink and toast the bride and groom."

  
Calcutta, though immensely populous, was in many ways a provincial outpost of the East India Company. The vast majority of the Europeans present were connected in one way or another with John Company and had been, apparently, since time out of mind. Stephen Maturin was to discover that Calcutta's corporate memory was far better than it had ever occurred to him that it would be, and that his name now held as much significance in Calcutta as it did in London. Wherever he went in Calcutta, upon being introduced, he repeatedly saw a light of recognition at the mention of his name, arch glances, barely veiled smirks and raised eyebrows. His previous irritation with Mr Adam wholly evaporated as he was subjected to increasingly blatant offence with no recourse of a response whatever. Mr Adam's reaction had been the height of tact and discretion by comparison.

It had been fifteen years since Stephen Maturin had last been in Calcutta. Fifteen long years and he could not think how many sea voyages since he had arrived in Calcutta on _Surprise_ in 1806. He had not been able to remember that much about his last week in Calcutta, his injuries from his duel with Canning having been so catastrophic. It had never occurred to him then or in the intervening years that the name "Stephen Maturin" would be remembered at all, let alone that it would be an occasion for gossip. Diana had been dead now for nearly six years. He had not reckoned on two facts: that Calcutta was exceeding provincial and cut off from the rest of British society, absent that of Bombay and that for those who had no occasion to ever leave, a very significant proportion of the population, discussions of events of the past were a lively and necessary form of entertainment. Duels happened not so very infrequently in Calcutta, but his killing of Canning, who had been in the running to become appointed the supreme director of the entire East India Company, had resulted in cascades of repercussions that had reverberations for years upon years. Thus the story of the duel had been told and repeated, embellished upon and made almost mythic in the intervening years, with Stephen cast in various unflattering rôles and Diana a very wicked Jezebel or far worse.

Dr Maturin also had no idea how well-known, despised and envied Diana had been by so very many in the Deccan and Calcutta itself, some of whom remembered her from when her father and first husband had been alive. _L'affair du Canning_ had been worthy of many years of boisterous dinner party conversation, speculation and ribaldry. Careers had been made and ruined as a result of Stephen Maturin's faulty shot and so, news that he had arrived with their Mr Adam, widely supposed to be the next Governor General of India, rekindled the gossip and speculation. Nor was it generally known in Calcutta that Diana was deceased. Not that such a fact would have stilled any tongues from wagging, but it may have slightly reduced interest in the entire topic.

His reception in Calcutta angered him greatly and filled him with sadness. Calcutta itself was full of painful memories, but nothing was more painful than the degree to which it made him miss Diana. She had been dead for almost six years now and he had considered himself eminently pragmatic in the manner in which he had striven to go on with his life. Once the horrendous shock and grief had finally passed over him, he had looked completely to the future, planning his courtship of and marriage to Christine Wood. Christine had finally firmly disabused him of that notion in May of the previous year. He had gone to Barcelona and the time spent there with Jack had helped him to get over this latest heartbreak, but being in Calcutta now reminded him so strongly of Diana that he experienced physical pain and being surrounded by people apparently blackguarding her with no recourse for him to respond in any way was more painful than he could have ever guessed. Calcutta had seemed a lifetime or more ago. It did not seem possible that fifteen years after the fact, there would be spiteful gossips for whom Stephen Maturin's presence would be an excuse to drag Diana's name through the mud yet again. Yet such was the case. It made Stephen wish to quit himself of their company, shed his Western clothing and walk through the bazaars mother naked surrounded by people who had never heard the name Diana Villiers.

Stephen had a list of twelve men in Calcutta he had been directed to see by Lord Liverpool, a list written in his Lordship's secretary's meticulous hand and a list of suggested queries pertaining to the Nizam of Hyderabad but increasingly, Stephen was suspecting that he had been sent on a fool's errand and he was becoming ever more annoyed. Whatever financial malfeasance with the Nizam, Lord Hastings and the William Palmer Company had been apparently primarily planned and committed by Sir Henry Russell, the British Resident of Hyderabad who had already been removed before _Surprise_ had set out and he had been succeeded by Charles Metcalfe. That Lord Hastings was on his way out was a foregone conclusion. Stephen had the distinct impression of having been practised upon and it made him very angry. None of it made any sense, least of all why he had been chosen for this particular task, having little knowledge of financial markets and investments. His supposition now was that this "investigation" had been proposed merely as a likely way of getting Dr Maturin to pressure Admiral Aubrey to agree to command _Surprise_ to take Mr Adam back to Calcutta. Not that in itself was so odious but that would not have required Stephen to attempt a dozen interviews with resistant and nearly belligerent government and Company officials in Calcutta.

Dr Maturin found to his surprise that Mr Adam now seemed to have developed a great deal of sympathy for him. Mr Adam endeavoured to expedite every arrangement possible, using the considerable power of his position to compel the relevant officials to see Stephen with all possible dispatch. Jack's plans were such that he wished to be underway in no more than two and a half weeks time if at all possible. It was a struggle to arrange twelve interviews in two and a half weeks and Mr Adam used all of the influence at his disposal to compel audiences with the gentleman on Stephen's list. Finally, there was one name left on Stephen's list, a Mr Robert Spankie, the Advocate General of Bengal, the chief prosecutor, who had made and broken more than half a dozen appointments to meet with Stephen in Mr Adam's office. At last, Mr Adam told Stephen after the sixth broken appointment that morning that they would go directly to Mr Spankie's office in Chowringhee and that Mr Spankie would surely be seen, if Mr Spankie were capable of seeing anyone aside from the Angel Gabriel.

Stephen sat in the anteroom and he could make out Mr John Adam's voice murmuring softly and the other man's voice, still marked with his native brogue, increasingly raised with each second that went by.

"How, sir, is that any affair of yours?" Stephen heard a voice say, presumably Mr Spankie's, sounding dangerously aggrieved and then Adam's voice, calm, reasoned, murmuring his reply. "No, I do not." Spankie said, his words audibly tinged with an edge of anger, raised enough to carry through the solid rosewood door. “No, sir, I will not.” More murmuring on Mr Adam's part could be heard. "I do not choose to do so, sir," came the answer. Now Mr Adam's voice, sterner but still murmuring. Stephen rose and walked around the office to look out the window. He feared this outing had been a waste of his time and effort and then he heard the voice even louder. "A tragedy -- a matter of honour -- defending the honour of one who possessed no honour. Not him, that piece of fast baggage who was the _raison d'etre_ of the entire debacle. Sure, it was a mistake, but Canning should not have had to pay with his life. I will not receive him nor speak to him nor shake that bastard's hand. I only wish that he might have gone to trial. The only service done that day was ridding Calcutta and the whole Deccan of that harlot's presence." Mr Adam's voice now raised in return and the door opened and he closed it behind himself quickly, putting on his hat.

"He is otherwise engaged, sir," Mr Adam said. He and Stephen left the office in silence to walk back to Government House in the heat.

"Here in Calcutta,there is little differentiation between employment in John Company and government," Stephen observed. "I presume fifteen years ago, Mr Spankie worked for the Company?"

"That he did," Mr Adam said.

"What was his position?"

"He was the chief legal advisor to one of the assistant directors of the Company."

"Which director would that have been?" Stephen asked, fully knowing the answer before the words were uttered.

"Mr Richard Canning," Mr Adam said. Stephen stopped walking.

"Mr Adam, in all candour, do you suppose that Mr Spankie intends to call me out? Is he a man of blood?"

"Oh, dear no, Doctor. Such is not his way, not at all, not for love nor money. I very much regret to say that it is far more likely that you will find yourself under indictment."

"You astonish me, sir. Under what charge?" Stephen said.

"Whichever charge he sees fit to press, but nothing trivial," Mr Adam said. "In such a case, there would be very little I could do, very little anyone could do to assist you, not even Lord Hastings. Mr Spankie has an immense amount of power and discretion and could have you detained here in Calcutta indefinitely. Walk the straight and narrow, my dear Maturin. I would recommend that you leave off seeking to interview Mr Spankie and quit Calcutta as soon as ever you might. This is not London," Mr Adam said, looking away. His words dazed Stephen with an admixture of shock and repulsion. He would never take a threat of any prosecution lightly after what Jack had suffered. His own unpopularity in Calcutta no longer seemed a matter of mere boorishness and that realisation shook him.

Stephen himself then looked away, across the narrow street. To his immense and uncomprehending disbelief, he found himself looking across at what he could swear to be the face of Mr Harry Johnson of Baltimore, Maryland studiously perusing his own. Harry Johnson, the American, the spymaster, Diana's former paramour of long ago -- was such a thing possible? Could it possibly be? The man quickly turned his face down and away and walked into the doorway of the first building he came to. Stephen found himself shaken but then sternly cuffed himself. Sure, it must have been the heat of the afternoon. He had not seen Johnson in eight years, not since that afternoon in Paris. What would he be doing now in Calcutta? America had been at peace for more than six years. It was nonsensical. Paris, certainly, but a highly placed American governmental official in Calcutta? He asked Mr Adam if they might stop and get a cold drink and he put the entire thing out of his mind.

 

Two days later had arranged to meet Jack for dinner that early afternoon, two days and a half before _Surprise_ was to sail, when he had come back from the bazaar, his first and only pleasure trip in Calcutta. He had not gone mother naked after all, but in a light pair of trousers, a worn and faded blue cotton coat, a lawn shirt, his sun-bleached old sennet hat and a grease-stained ancient waistcoat which he frequently naturalised in for the convenience of its many pockets. He had lost track of time in the bazaar and was walking swiftly back to the hotel late for their rendezvous, covered with road dust and assorted filth and with dried blood caked on his hands and around his fingernails when Jack spied him from down the street. Jack was immaculately attired in his second best uniform in the heat and he beheld Stephen with a distaste that he did everything in his power to conceal, so glad was he to see his particular friend for the first time in more than a week. He called out to him with his booming amidships voice, "Ahoy, there, ahoy there, old Stephen!" Stephen himself smiled, the only instance of him doing so genuinely in the last two weeks even as he was chagrined by his own tardiness and sensible of his state of filth.

"Oh, dear joy, pray excuse my appearance, my dear Jack. I promise I shall be put to rights more quickly than you could ever imagine," Stephen said, not at all surprised that Jack declined to make any physical contact with him in any manner, acknowledging him instead with a bow, as he wore no hat in the heat. "I have my snowy linen unbesmirched by the streets of Calcutta to shift into and water and towels to wash away the dust in my room. Calcutta is so very dusty," said he and they set off for the hotel.

"No, soul," Jack protested, "I am just clemmed, for second breakfast was a long while ago. I should have had Killick rouse me out something before I set out."

They walked into the lobby of Black's Hotel, which was peculiarly empty for the hour, indeed, deserted.

"Jack, pray sit down, I beg, for you look as though you shall have a fit of apoplexy in this heat. My room is three flights up.” Jack protested. “No, stay here and read your _Gazette_ and I shall be right down as soon as I have washed up and shifted my clothes," Stephen said, pulling his hand from his waistcoat pocket, shaking it and sucking on his bleeding finger at the margin of the cuticle.

"You are freshly bleeding, brother," Jack said, solicitously.

"That is very observant of you, Jack," Stephen said, tartly. "It is just a nick of my smallest finger. My catling is in this pocket. It is still razor sharp, despite my having used it on the elephant." Jack looked at him with barely masked revulsion, realisation dawning on him what the stains on Stephen's hands were.

"You cut off part of an elephant, Stephen?"

"Yes, the poor dear creature. She died quite suddenly at the bazaar. Obviously, I cannot do a necropsy on an entire elephant, even so very young an elephant, so I took only the head and a good deal of the neck. It should be up in my room. I had it sent here ahead." Jack blanched at the thought of it and sat down on a very large and comfortable rattan settee. The ceilings were so high that the lobby was quite cool despite the early afternoon heat.

"Stephen, I shall wait here. Do keep your hands out of your pockets."

 

The first thing Stephen noticed opening the door was the loud hum of the cloud of buzzing flies which had infiltrated his room, attracted to the flesh of the elephant's head, wrapped in bloody gauze. The flies were large blue bottles and they flew past him, swarming and darting in circles in the door frame, their cold bellies touching his skin. He closed the door. A second later, he saw that he was not alone.

"So, Dr Maturin, finally we meet again and here in Calcutta of all places. My, but you are dusty," Harry Johnson said after he had turned the swivel chair at Stephen's desk to face the doorway. His voice was all cordiality with that friendly slow drawl that Stephen so well remembered, but Johnson’s face was cold and white. He was dressed in pristine bone coloured trousers and a white linen shirt. He was going through Stephen's papers. Stephen's Joe Manton pistol was in his right hand, cradled in his lap. Stephen felt as though his heart had dropped through his feet and he cursed himself for being so feebleminded as to have chosen to believe what he wanted to be true as opposed to the testimony of his own eyes. Now he would pay very dearly for that willfulness, one way or the other. If he turned now to flee, Johnson would clearly shoot him in the back and he would be a dead man.

"You have scarce changed a particle in all these years. Why, I should have known you anywhere. I was most surprised to see you here in Calcutta the other day, though now I understand that still, to this day, where Admiral Jack Aubrey goes his particular friend, Dr Stephen Maturin inevitably follows,” Johnson said with the trace of what would have been a smile had he not appeared so very cold, so calculating in his fury. He was clearly incensed, but his anger did not manifest in heat, as it did in most men, making him a far more dangerous adversary, Stephen thought, standing very still, willing himself to consider the possibilities, most of which seemed very bleak at this juncture.

“There is a certain, how shall I put it, a poetic quality to this meeting, is there not? That our acquaintance should have informally begun and now will end in India. I am certain you were as surprised to see me there on Harrington Street in Chowringhee as I was to see you." Stephen said nothing. "There is an irony that I am going to kill you in your hotel room as you killed Messieurs Dubreuil and Pontet-Canet in mine. You most deeply offended my honour, sir. Upon my word, you offended me most profoundly and unforgivably. You did not behave as a gentleman would by any commonplace definition of the word and so I will kill you like the dog that you are. This cannot be a matter of honour between us when you acted in a manner so absolutely devoid of any breeding. It was most uncivil of you to leave that appalling mess in my room after I had entertained you so very handsomely as a guest." Stephen said nothing. "I shall try to be much tidier about the whole affair than you were, though assuredly, it will be not be any of your concern." Johnson looked at Stephen "You certainly are very good at keeping quiet. You killed two men and you stole from me. You took what was mine. You took my property, sir." Stephen wondered if this mention of property were an attempt by Johnson to be droll as a reference to Diana. His pale blue eyes searched Johnson's face and found no evidence of any humour.

"I think not," Stephen said coldly, fingering the handle of the catling in his waistcoat pocket.

"Perhaps my memory is better than yours, sir: my personal papers? The diamond rivière with the Begum? Does that bring anything to mind?"

"I did not take the necklace," Stephen said. Johnson's eyes narrowed and he was silent. Time seemed to slow down to a glacial pace, each minute stretching out for what felt like hours. Stephen felt his own breaths coming less and less frequently and deepening in his chest as his pulse slowed whilst Johnson weighed the pistol in his hand.

"I brought my own piece with me, but now I have this very excellent, indeed this far superior pistol that you were so good to have left here in your room and I am going to put a very large hole into you with it. You may call for help all you like; everyone is gone and the walls are uncommon thick. This is not Boston; one spreads a few _annas_ around and everything is taken care of. I need not worry myself one bit about prosecution and it turns out that you are none too welcome here in Calcutta still, after all these years. How was it that I did not realise that it was actually you who had dueled and killed Mr Richard Canning back when I met you in Boston? How was that possible? Perhaps it was all in your demeanor of the harmless, befuddled naturalist. I was so thrown off by Jack Aubrey and all that business with the copied letters on the _Leopard_ that I missed what was staring me in the face. It is all so much clearer now. In any case, it did not even cost me an entire _rupee_ to arrange this personal interview with you, Dr Maturin. I can carry your corpse out the front door, slung over my shoulder right through the lobby and no one will look at me twice. I will call for some porters and a cart, though, and take you out the back. This afternoon is damnably warm. I would never have gone out of my way to find you, but here you are and so this business may finally be taken care of, at last. How is Diana, by the way?" Stephen's eyes narrowed and he felt himself go ice cold as the blood drained from his face. His gaze became frigid and reptilian. "I heard tell that you married that whore. Better you than me," Johnson said, throwing his head back as he laughed heartily, his eyes becoming slits as he did so.

Back in Catalunya during his youth, Stephen had spent more than a month of Sundays over the years with his godfather, Don Ramon d'Ullastret i Casademon, a man who despite his large frame was capable of blindingly quick motions with his hands; most astonishingly, being capable of harmlessly snatching a live bird in flight out of the air into his cupped hands. He had taught Stephen the principles of his methodology, had instilled in him the moment of deep inward concentration, the slowing and centring that made such feats possible and had been pleased that his godson's skill had, in time, come to surpass his own. Now, a lifetime of snatching living specimens from their nests and burrows and a career filled with performing amputations in the pitching cockpit had made Stephen Maturin capable of movements of inconceivable rapidity and deftness. Lightning could seem almost torturously slow in comparison, as he struck like a death adder, initiating, performing and completing an action in less time than it took a bolt of lightning to finish striking.

Within less than four seconds, both of Harry Johnson's carotid arteries, which he had so obligingly offered up for examination by extending his head back in laughter, had been severed with the catling and Stephen jumped back and away from him as Johnson rose and lunged towards him, staggering blindly to aim the pistol, his life's blood spurting out of him like a fountain onto the very fine red and blue Bijar Herati rug as he fell to the floor. Within less than another ten seconds he was profoundly unconscious. Stephen dragged the smaller rug Johnson's body had fallen upon to lie atop the larger carpet and pulled the sheet from the bed to put it loosely around his neck to soak up the blood. He took his dusty coat off, examined himself in the looking glass for fresh bright red bloodstains and locked the door behind him as he left his hotel room.

 

Jack looked up, surprised to see Stephen still dusty standing before him.

"Listen, Jack, will you, I have something of an exigency and I would be most profoundly grateful if you might come upstairs with me." Stephen said. Jack put the _Gazette_ down.

"What about dinner?" Jack said, his belly empty and calling to him, as it was now well past dinner time. He was most sharp set, despite the heat.

"We shall have dinner, my dear, directly, but I must beg this favour of you."

"Stephen, you utterly astonish me." Jack said, the familiar blush creeping across his face. They climbed the three flights of stairs and Stephen opened the door and pushed Jack in quickly, silently closing the door behind him and locked it.

Jack stood looking down at Johnson's nearly exsanguinated body wordlessly.

"I see." He said finally, kneeling down and examining  Johnson's handsome face, now bloodless and grey.

"It is Harry Johnson, the American; Harry Johnson whom we met in Boston -- he saw me here in Calcutta the other day and he came here to the hotel to kill me. He was lying in wait here in my room. I was obliged to kill him, Jack. There was no other way." Stephen said, deeply ashamed now for having been so unaware, for having been caught so miserably flat-footed.

"So I gather." Jack said, looking at the gun still clasped in Johnson's hand. "Surely, we must contact Mr Adam immediately."

"Listen, Jack, I cannot possibly consider going to any authority. Mr Adam is a very powerful man in Calcutta and has been truly a friend to me as of late, but Mr Adam is not the law in and of himself. I cannot explain to any authority outside of Whitehall that I am an intelligence agent and that Johnson was an American intelligence agent and all the circumstances that occurred more than seven years ago. I have not wanted to speak of it, but my reputation apparently precedes me in Calcutta. The present criminal prosecutor, the Advocate General of Bengal, a Mr Robert Spankie, was a protégé of Canning's and is extremely ill-disposed towards me. He refused entirely to meet with me, despite Mr Adam's attempts to sway him. The fact that I have now killed a second man who happened to have been a lover of Diana's will not be lost on anyone. I have borne very, very significant affronts to my honour and dignity and have bitten my tongue repeatedly to be clear of having to answer to any authority." Jack was silent for several minutes, apparently mulling over their possibilities before he looked into Stephen's face and spoke quietly.

"Poor Jennings finally died late this morning. I was going to tell you after dinner." Jack said finally. "The Sethians want nothing to do with him. Were you planning to anatomise him, Stephen, before we bury him?"

"He had given me his leave, the unfortunate man. He expressly desired me to do so, to formalise his break with his co-religionists. I hesitate to do so only fearing that it would incur the ill will of the Sethians, but his brother-in-law told me he wished me to do it, for he thought it would break their relation and the bad luck for the ship.” Stephen said, glancing at Johnson's lifeless face with its expression of shock and ire. He leaned forward and closed the man's eyes as well as he could.

"I thought if you were done with him today, we might bury Jennings late this afternoon, after we dined, as most of the crew is at liberty." Jack said. "He had wasted away to virtually nothing. He was scarcely five stone, now, poor man. When we sew it up, his hammock will be almost empty, there is so little of him left. Not to be ghoulish about it, but no one in the crew will have anything to do with the cockpit until their Jonah has been buried and it is quite warm. Your natives fled as soon as he died." Jack said. "It would just be a matter of how we can get Johnson to the ship. I cannot see our way clear for that, brother." Jack said, looking at the corpse. Johnson was smaller than Jack but significantly larger than Stephen.

"Go down to the street and have the hotel man call for two _qūlīes_ and a cart to meet me here for us to go to the cutter." Stephen said.

"How?"

"In the rug. In these two rugs, actually. We may go out the back. Johnson told me that he had already paid bribes to have a clear way out. I shall check out of the hotel and make my most abject apologies for what my elephant's head has done to their rugs and I will pay for them. I shall send a note to Mr. Adam begging his pardon for taking my leave on paper. May we bury them at sea then, this afternoon?"

"Certainly. We need not go so very far out to get to twenty fathom water. We have enough _Surprises_ aboard to take her out and we shall come back in and fly the Blue Peter directly. It will be somewhat like burying poor Lindsay in Valdivia, though no ceremony, of course." Jack said. He watched as Stephen arranged Johnson's limbs, bound his hands, knees and ankles together, bandaged his neck further with another sheet to staunch any further leakage of blood and then they rolled Johnson's body up in the smaller rug and then the larger. Jack gazed past the rugs with Johnson's corpse rolled up in them as Stephen now rapidly disrobed and washed himself, changing quickly into the fresh clothes that had been laid out for him earlier that day.

"Shall I go down and call for the porters then?" Jack said, standing up.

"If you please, Jack." Jack gazed at him, at how weary and low his particular friend was. He so wished to make some apropos comment or witty jest to lighten Stephen's mood but words failed him. He grasped Stephen's arm.

"We shall be shot of Calcutta by this time tomorrow, shipmate." Jack said. "Salt water and freshening breezes will set us all to rights. I know I shall be much relieved." Stephen looked into Jack’s eyes.

 "God save we may, soul."

 

_1 March 1821_

_I have never regretted the necessity of killing any man as much as I did taking the life of Harry Johnson. I was fortunate to escape our rencounter totally unscathed. He declared to me that he would make short work of dispatching me out of what was nothing but pure revenge, given there are no hostilities between our respective nations. Revenge specifically for what I cannot say -- enabling Diana to flee him? The loss of the diamonds? Killing the French agents in his room? Making a fool out of him before his American superiors? Or worse still, duping Wogan and thus he himself and making him the instrument of the destruction of so many of his French associates? Any one of these, I suppose, would be a sufficient provocation for him to seize the opportunity to kill me in cold blood._

_Why, then, do I feel such melancholy at having snuffed out his life? He was a dangerous man, a violent man, no gentleman for all his ire towards me on that score, for no gentleman would ever mistreat any woman as he mistreated Diana. I thought I had not the energy within me to be summoned to defend myself; I thought I was perhaps too dispirited to even care if he killed me and then he so grossly insulted Diana and I found how wrong I was. It all happened so very fast and with virtually no thought on my part. Yet I still grieve the necessity. Life is more complex and riven with tragedy than I had any conception of in my youth. I am getting far too old for the life of an intelligence agent. I pray that the necessity of my taking another human life may never occur ever again._

_Jack knows me so thoroughly, he has been so solicitous, he worries for me so and I am too dispirited to even resent it very much. We buried Jennings/Johnson alone, just the two of us, and the crew on board looked away from us as we eased the hammock over the side. I had never seen Jack sew up a hammock himself in all these years, bless him. I have saved several of Jennings' organs which bear the mark of poisoning by the corrosive sublimate and I have all of my notes to write a treatment of the case for publication. That poor, dear long suffering man did me a greater service in death than he ever could have imagined possible. May he rest in peace._

_I could not bring myself to play music last night. Jack took me to the cabin, undressed me, washed my entire person thoroughly three times with fresh water, dried me and then dressed me in a batiste nightshirt he had made for me in Calcutta. He lay next to me in his cot with his arms around me as I shivered convulsively most of the night despite the heat and I only fell asleep as the sun finally rose. Dear God, may no new thing arise._


End file.
